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Absolutely Fantastic

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I started to watch this film because of all the glowing reviews. The main character is Juliy, who is a postman, and he's trying to court this girl even though everyone just ignores him. The girl is in love with this rich Sergey dude, and he's always showing off to her. She is also being pursued by a banker, but then he gets arrested. Sergey leaves without saying a word, and then now is Juliy chance to win her heart. What does he do? He ruins the whole thing by getting drunk and embarrassing her. So the character I was rooting for the whole time, ends up to be another idiot. Sergey comes back and romances her, but in the end tells her he's engaged.So, there's no happy ending here, very disappointing.

Reading some of the user reviews of this film, I just can't keep quiet. Some of the comments really missed the point:"Juliy had no friends at all. He gave a pre-wedding feast at his house and could only find four people to invite, none of whom were his friends" - The film made it clear that he was trying to surround Larisa with high society, not his friends. That was the whole point! He didn't belong in that group."the screenplay cliché-ridden" - not at all. "I was also taken aback by Larissa's easy acquiescence to leaving Juliy for a man, Sergie, who had just ditched her a year ago. She seemed to be resigned to her fate yet raced to get away from Juliy" - Yes, because her mother just made her realize that a marriage with Juliy was going to be a life sentence of misery and shame. On top of that, she is clearly a passionate, spirited girl.I found it to be a beautifully crafted film about passion and the shackles of social convention set in a stunning period and location.

My wife and I just watched A Cruel Romance last night and both of us agreed it was a good film that was tragic.I wondered though why Juliy had no friends at all. He gave a pre-wedding feast at his house and could only find four people to invite, none of whom were his friends? I thought that was unreasonable and detracted from the story. Even Larissa's mother did not participate at the feast when if she had she could have headed off the plot against Juliy. Yet at the other gatherings we saw many people, most of whom were repeaters. They were at Larissa's house, with Juliy present, so why were not any of these invited? I was also taken aback by Larissa's easy acquiescence to leaving Juliy for a man, Sergie, who had just ditched her a year ago. She seemed to be resigned to her fate yet raced to get away from Juliy. Her decency would have come into play and prevented her from such a flighty move.

Eldar Ryazanov's greatest achievement was to make a Faubourg melodrama be suave and fresh,and to give it elegance and gusto,and a fitting fluidity;it has atmosphere,unity,gusto,the plastic is extraordinary:an enormously,lavishly delighting movie.While I was enjoying A Cruel Romance (1984),this movie picturesque and colorful and completely charming,I remembered how I saw it for the first time,in a theater,many years ago,as a kid and already a movie buff,with my late grandmother and with my godmother;at that age,I was impressed with the climactic final.An older gossip (Alisa Frejndlikh) at a pinch is pressed to marry away her third daughter,Larisa,the most profitable and advantageous way possible.Wonderfully written,and even more exquisitely constructed,Zhestokiy Romans (1984) boasts in featuring a still young beau Mihalkov as a slender and quite sluggard dandy of the slums;he was supple,nonchalant,mean and suburban.The role is mainly a physical one,and behind the mendacious slum dandy one feels the cold-hearted,evil-minded streetwise hooligan.Mihalkov is unmatched in giving "Serghei Sergheevitch",his character,a powerful interest.He is teamed with a wondrous,beaming beauty,the truly sensational Larisa Guzeyeva (here in her debut;very unfortunately,she did not make much of a career after Zhestokiy Romans ,1984,though she deserved to have one). The other characters are very well sketched, frightful figures of grotesque,the provincial fauna;a tedious and verminous clerk,two cynical and bitchy merchants,Knurov and Vojevatov.The atmosphere is chilling,a small provincial world devoured by sordidness:the ancient humanity,left to itself.A Cruel Romance (1984) succeeds in being much more than a lowbrow Faubourg tale:namely,in inspiring compassion for a human being,Larisa,and she is not a bit idealized;it is a Russian story about fate.The script may be lowbrow and conventional,but it is not in the least stupid.Ryazanov's astounding showmanship is undeniable,and the cast could not be better: Mrs. Alisa Frejndlikh,Aleksei Petrenko and Viktor Proskurin,Andrei Miagkov and Georgi Burkov are extremely good in their roles.With such a poor,unpromising and precarious content,the movie could very easily turn into something as provincial and insipid as a Frank Capra or a Nora Ephron film;but once again,the genre is nothing,the genre is a mere premise,the film itself is everything,and Eldar Ryazanov gave his film simplicity as well as transparency,gusto and charm,a delicious coloring;it is,for me,the very definition of charm and beauty;once again,the Russians are the masters of the coloration.Zhestokiy Romans (1984)staggers,surprises and delights by the keen sense of comprehensive width,by recreating a space traversed by the currents of freshness,life,spontaneity.The affective gamut is one of coldness,alienation and derision,mockery:the greed,the baseness,the intrigue,the lust,the brazenness have human shapes,the abominable cheek of promiscuity:Aleksandr Ostrovsky was a bitter moralist.The plastic gamut,on the other hand,unfolds relishing and cooling colors,inexhaustible treasures of visual delight,glacial colors that caress the heart.It is long since the art knew how to convincingly couch the range of threat,the embittered,ominous machinations gathering slowly under the eaves of a helpless and giddy being;Zhestokiy Romans (1984)does it;Larisa is not idealized,she is not adorned with improbable qualities.She is described simply as a being without malice. But the script is remarkably sober and balanced;the lines are well conceived.The scale confesses a Zolist impact,the influence of the Russian lesser realists and naturalists.